Installing Crucial C300 procedure help - SATA3 or SATA6 port?

Draeger · 3 May 2014 at 10:10

Just picked up an inexpensive Crucial C300 RealSSD 64Gb from here in the MM. Plan is to drop a fresh install of Windows 8.1 onto the drive to have a play around with it before deciding whether to jump from the W7 install on my current SSD which is an OCZ Vertex 2E.

Having done a bit of digging on the C300 I have a couple of questions.

Motherboard is an Asus P6x58D-E. Should I plug the C300 into the SATA6 or SATA3 ports? Am I right in thinking the SATA6 ports are Marvell ones? What is the procedure for installing using the SATA6 Marvell port, do I need to change anything in my BIOS? Anything else to be aware of? Also, I've read that you should download the manufacturers SSD tool and carry out a 'full erase' prior to attempting a Windows install? Lastly, whats the score with 'garbage collection' on the C300?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

wazza300 · 3 May 2014 at 17:32

just set both marvell and the intel sata ports to ahci mode in the bios before installing windows

don't install the marvell sata drivers either just use what windows installs

Draeger · 3 May 2014 at 19:52

Cheers dude. And the 'full erase', carry that out too?

wazza300 · 4 May 2014 at 12:09

its upto you

Draeger · 6 May 2014 at 16:05

Ok, managed to get a spare few hours this afternoon to give this a whirl. So I fitted the C300 and hooked it up to the blue Intel SATA port, SATA1. Not sure if that was the best way to go about it but I've read lots of comments about the grey Marvell ports being unreliable and that apart from benchmarking or if you are using huge files that you would be hard pressed to notice any difference between that and the Intel SATA ports. Disconnected all other drives and left just that one attached. Fired up the PC with a USB stick containing a bootable PartedMagic and went into BIOS. Changed the Intel and Marvell SATA's to AHCI then rebooted letting the USB stick boot to PartedMagic. Carried out a full secure erase on the C300, it detected it first time although it did tell me it was 'locked' which I was expecting it to do. Did as the instructions suggest and put the PC to Sleep then came back out of sleep and the drive was 'unlocked' and allowed the secure erase to be carried out.

Once that was complete, restarted PC with a Rufus made bootable USB stick containing Windows 8.1. Installed that, it detected the drive first time with no issues. Was surprised to see how quickly it installed W8.1. Rebooted after Windows set things up and voila - sat at desktop with 8.1 looking at me for the first time on this system.

Shut down and plugged all my drives back into their respective SATA ports again (Including a brand new 1Tb Samsung for data backup). Rebooted to desktop and made sure they were all showing present and correct - check. Played around with Windows 8.1 for a bit setting stuff up and configuring things then decided to restart and see if I could boot to my OCZ Vertex 2E with Windows 7 on it, simply by changing the boot order in the BIOS and pointing it at the OCZ/W7 drive first. Started booting up then bluescreened. Doh!!! Needed to change the AHCI settings back to IDE I guess. Did so and the PC booted back to my Windows 7 install with the C300 showing as Local Disk (I) and System Reserved:-

So all looking good so far. Nice to be able to just quickly change the BIOS settings and boot to either W7 or 8.1 without having to fiddle around inside the case with SATA cables etc. This will allow me to install Office etc back onto the new drive and get my email accounts all dropped back in there then play around with 8.1 until I decide if I'm going to make the jump from W7 or not. Off to download ClassicShell and have a play around!

wazza300 · 6 May 2014 at 16:59

you can do a simple reg tweak for win7 to enable ahci mode without re installing,boot into win7 in ide mode then download and run this reg file,reboot into bios and set to ahci then boot into win7 and that's it

http://cdn.ithinkdiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ahci.reg

EDIT: ide mode will slow the ssd right down compared to ahci,and the marvell ports are ok'ish

Draeger · 6 May 2014 at 17:07

wazza300 said:
you can do a simple reg tweak for win7 to enable ahci mode without re installing,boot into win7 in ide mode then download and run this reg file,reboot into bios and set to ahci then boot into win7 and that's it

http://cdn.ithinkdiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ahci.reg

Cool, so that would let me just set AHCI to 'on' for the Intel SATA ports so that my OCZ Vertex would also boot in that mode? Since I haven't got anything plugged into the Marvell SATA ports I assume it's fine to just disable them in the BIOS?

wazza300 · 6 May 2014 at 17:12

yes it wont affect your other drives it will help them if in ahci mode,can disable the marvell if not using them

Draeger · 6 May 2014 at 18:33

Appreciate the help!!

Seems to have worked a treat. Many thanks wazza, you have been a great help in the last few threads I've posted with questions on this current system. It's much appreciated!